


Too Good for Me, for You, for the World

by Katonica



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Endgame, Gen, Good Peter, Heavy Angst, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Iron Man - Freeform, Irondad, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Spider-Man - Freeform, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, spiderson, you will hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 01:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20538074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katonica/pseuds/Katonica
Summary: Peter Parker has one more trick up his sleeve before Thanos can achieve his goal of turning the universe to dust.Tony Stark isn't really for the idea.Peter Parker isn't giving Tony a choice.





	Too Good for Me, for You, for the World

**Author's Note:**

> Heh. Uh, tags. Enjoy!

Tony held the stones carefully, a huge grin on his face as he watched horror dawn on Thanos's face.

"Asshole!" Iron Man turned to look at the other Peter, the older one.

"Grab my hand. You do that, you’ll kill yourself. We can share the power, okay?" 

The desperation _ burned _into Tony's heart, and finally, Tony did what someone else wanted him to do.

He reached for Peter but watched the other man get knocked away by a soldier, Quill yelling in pain at the impact of his fall as he disappeared into the battle.

Steve grabbed Tony's hand, and the two ex-teammates looked at each other, trust and pain and finality in their eyes.

_ Big man in a suit of armour, take that off, what are you? _

_ Everything special about you came out of a bottle! _

Angry truths they had yelled while under the control of the Mind Stone, things that they thought but never spoke, pounded through their heads as they recalled each time they fought, only coming together in times of dire need for a hero, for _heroes _to step into the light.

"Together." They breathed out, quiet enough for only the both of them to hear. Tony nodded and watched at the Falcon and Barnes linked hands, slowly making their way to the unconscious Quill.

Wanda joined, then T'Challa, and on and on and on and Thanos felt the finality of his defeat, that he was inevitable but with these annoying, pesky humans and creatures joining together to become one force against him, he knew, in fact, his defeat was _inevitable. _

He charged once more, desperately, at the Iron Man, only to be shoved backward by a large blast from a fiery woman and the living embodiment of fury known to him as Thor. The woman on fire—who had a strange connection to the Space Stone—grabbed his neck, slamming him onto the ground as the heroes behind the two forces continued their journey to find Quill, the previous Celestial. 

"You took my home. My people. My _family_." Thor's voice didn't scare Thanos, but the hardened resolve in the God's tone made him nervous. 

Thanos did not get _nervous_.

But now, in a time where he wasn’t supposed to be there, he did. 

The fury scathed Thanos as fire did to skin, it burned through Thanos’s heart and the feeling of smouldering ash coursed through his veins, lighting his nerves on fire in pain. And he felt it, the feeling of the Stormbreaker piercing his armour, and then his skin, and choked out a quiet gasp as he felt the blade turn upwards from his chest into his neck. "You told me to go for the _head_. This is for Loki."

"Ah, brother. Are you sure you want to do something for me?" Thor started, his grip slackening at the recognition of the familiar voice slinking around the Titan as Thanos watched a green shimmer appear in the battlefield next to the God of Thunder. The previously deceased God of Mischief's eyes grew alight with delight as he saw the precarious position his murderer was in. 

"Loki." Thor was able to get out, the choked cry of happiness and relief apparent as the green-clad god slammed a knife into the Titan’s neck with a sense of fulfillment.

Thor turned to his brother, happiness in his eye and then again turned to the heroes who had finally found Quill, who was battered and bruised but able to stand.

The heroes linked hands, reaching for each other as a last stand against the wounded Titan, who saw his demise and seeked to end it quickly, preparing for his own demise. 

Tony finally stood up, chest puffed out and stones in hand as he walked over to the line of heroes, his unoccupied hand reaching for Steve's as he prepared to place the stones in his gauntlet. "I started this war when I created this suit. I’m ending it. Because, I _am-_"

Thanos waited for the snap. He closed his eyes, accepting his fate, knowing that his destiny was unfulfilled and would forever be.

  
  
But there was no sound, no snap, not even a clap.

It was silent, and Thanos opened his eyes again.

There was only a young boy a few feet away from the original hero. Tony's feet were glued to the ground with a sticky substance that held him firmly where he stood, along with the teammates that Tony had long learned to trust and depend upon, who had all been willing to suffer the effects of the stones with him. 

_How had Spider-Man webbed all their feet at once?_ They wondered, while Tony internally cursed himself for helping the boy with creating the 'Web-Net', for emergencies that would require a large expanse of webbing at once to catch people who were falling.

“Peter, let go of the stones.” The boy shook his head, refusing to listen to his mentor's firm tone. “You have so much more to live for Mr. Stark! You have Morgan, and Mrs. Potts, and the team-” He cut off, gulping as he grasped the Infinity Stones, gritting his teeth as lightning started to dance up his arm in anticipation of the event to come.

“And you’re _human_. You have no alterations, nothing but _I_ do! I've got Mjolnir with me, and that could help with the sparks that come with using the stones-” The boy cut off, his ramblings trailing to a pause as he finally looked at the despairing gaze that Tony gave him.

"You're just a _boy! _Peter! You're just a boy, please, _please!" _Desperation tore at the older man, his eyes wild with fear and horror as he watched the boy open his hands, revealing the six precious stones in his hold.

The boy took off his mask, revealing his age and identity, with eyes of brown that held childish youth within his irises, and bruises and cuts across his face, too young for a boy his age to be having upon his features.

No one could move, as the webbing, and anxiety, held them firmly into the ground.

No one could move, as they stared at the young child, eyes alight with a maturity beyond his years, held 6 glowing stones, slowly inserting them onto his suit’s glove.

Thanos frowned.

The boy was so _young_, to think this way. 

To be so sacrificial, to be this _good, _this _pure, _this _humane._

Peter, he remembered Iron Man calling his name, shivered, his eyes closed as he picked up the hammer from the ground beside him, lightning slowly crawling up his arm like a spider. “I have radiation in my system, Mr. Stark. Like Mr. Bruce does. You saw what happened to his arm, and he’s full of gamma radiation. And look!” He called out, waving the hammer. "I'm worthy!"

Tony let out a choked laugh.

Peter let out a shaky breath as he raised his hand into the air for all to see.

“For you, Mr. Stark, I’ll do anything. Even this.” 

Anthony Edward Stark screamed as the boy snapped his fingers, and the stones tore at Peter's suit—the suit that Tony had put so much work into protecting the boy, only now becoming a conduit of what would kill him. The man cried, screaming as he watched the boy be enveloped by a powerful beam of light, vanishing as quickly as it had come.

He pulled away from the steel grips of his teammates—their hands had squeezed tightly as they watched the events occur, too powerless and tired to attempt to escape the webbing—and tearing apart the webbing at his feet. He flew as fast as he could over to the boy who collapsed into his arms as his suit retracted back into the glowing, blue arc reactor, still very much alive, unlike the boy in his arms.

And Thanos watched his army become dust, disintegrated by the boy’s pure will for the intruders to leave and never return. 

And Thanos watched as Iron Man, the man’s heart who was claimed to be nothing but ice and steel, cry as he shook the boy's body, desperately crying as he looked at the paling boy. “Peter! You can’t do this, we had it covered, we always have it covered-” The boy slowly shook his head. Tony brushed sweaty hair out of the boy's face, revealing to the estranged Avengers, heroes of space and the universe of how _human _Tony Stark was, how pained he was as he cried, as he held his young protegee in his arms like glass, waiting for it to shatter.

And Thanos watched as the boy raised his uncharred hand, letting go of the hammer, pointing at the man in front of him. “You…” The young teen coughed out, “have much more to live for than me, Mr. Stark. You’re going to raise the next Stark and you’re going to cherish her and love her and-” Peter let out a wet cough, and from what Thanos could see as the heroes crowded around the dying boy, spit out blood.

“You won, Mr. Stark. You did it.” 

And Thanos was no more, letting out a quiet sigh as he too, disintegrated with his fallen army.

And then Peter Benjamin Parker was no more.

* * *

Peter laid out on the ground, one hand laying on Mjolnir and the other hand, charred. He was still losing blood, his face a ruined mess from the battle along with the number of times he had his body smashed and broken into debris. He did not breathe.

"There was no way-" Strange dodged the repulsor's fire, staring at the man still on his knees, one arm stretched out with his palm still glowing bright blue, and eyes blazing with a fury like no other.

"That's fucking _ bullshit _ and you know it." The heroes around the original Avenger flinched at his language, jumping as the man stood up, marching through the heroes to the taller man, grabbing the collar of the sorcerer. 

He held up one finger and pointed at Strange's neck, his hands shaking as he stared angrily at the sorcerer, pure fury and agony swirling and mixing together, both emotions fighting while being overpowered by despair.

"You looked at _me. You pointed at me. _ It wasn't supposed to be _ HIM! _" Tony's voice echoed through the victorious battlefield, silencing cheers of victory of the defeat of the Titan.

And Strange knew.

"There was a twin to our winning future." He hesitated, his voice as quiet as a hummingbird's flight. The wizard shook his head. "But I didn't- I-" He stuttered.

"I didn't know there was someone so _ selfless _ in this world to even consider that one to be a success-"

He wheezed as Tony grabbed his neck, squeezing his throat as he held the wizard in the air, the magical cloak nowhere to be found. 

"_ Peter. _ Peter was that selfless. Peter is that pure, that _ good _ of a human being to do it, and you didn't _ev__en _try and _consider it?!"_

Tony all but screamed, his voice cracking as the heroes could only watch tears pool and trickle down the man's face, washing the dirt and grime of the battle onto the ground, next to where Peter Parker still lay dead.

Wide eyes of brown stared into the open sky where he had flown with a pegasus, where he had swung during his time as a vigilante, where he had first seen his hero blasting away robots at the Stark EXPO. They had stared at the sky in wonder originally, but now they only stared with a blank gaze of acceptance and emptiness.

It was what hurt Tony so much, as he stared at the boy who lay unmoving, the boy who had accepted his death far too ahead of his time, who had given Tony forgiveness for every fault and sin he ever committed in his life, something that wasn't supposed to be offered to the Man of Iron.

It was what made Tony Stark, the Man with a Heart of Iron, scream and cry like a child, his voice resonating across the battlefield like the Four Horsemen as they claimed their victims, of ash and destruction, of horror and pain, of the death of his son.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoop! So I combined two ficlets I wrote when I was bored into this thing.
> 
> I uh... I'm gonna go stand in the time-out corner now.


End file.
